Political Quotes

“2 decades ago Congress passed legislation enabling States to form compacts to build low-level radioactive waste dumps. States have spent in excess of $400 million trying to site low-level radioactive waste dumps, but not a single pile of dirt has been overturned. The Midwest Compact, which is trying to site a low-level radioactive waste dump in Ohio, fell apart last year for the same reason the Texas, Maine, Vermont compact fell apart. Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, one of the biggest sources of nuclear waste to go into the dump site in Texas, recently announced they are going to shut the reactor 10 years sooner than they had anticipated. The Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company has since concluded that the compact no longer makes economic sense and is urging Congress to vote no. When a nuclear power company says something does not make sense, just imagine how bad the thing is. Compact after compact has fallen apart or been stopped by concerned citizens because the whole approach to building low-level radioactive waste sites is fundamentally flawed. We need a rational low-level radioactive waste policy that does not stick the taxpayers and ratepayers with huge waste disposal bills, that does not mandate the proliferation of dumps across the country, that does not put radioactive waste on the highways and railways. The people of the United States should not have to pay for the disposal of waste that was generated by commercial nuclear utilities.”